1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for printing an image on a medium such as a print sheet, and, more particularly to an image forming apparatus that has a recording head of an ink-jet system and an image forming method.
2. Description of the Related Art
As this type of an image forming apparatus, there is known an image forming apparatus that has a conveying path for conveying a sheet in an apparatus body thereof and ejects an ink from a recording head to the sheet conveyed by this sheet conveying path to form an image on the sheet.
The recording head ejects the ink while moving along a head moving path orthogonal to a conveying direction of the sheet. One end side of the head moving path is a standby position of the recording head. As disclosed in, for example, JP-A-2005-161816, a cleaning unit is provided near this standby position. The cleaning unit includes a cap that sucks an excess ink on an orifice surface of the recording head and a blade that cleans the orifice surface of the recording head.
At the time of a printing operation, ink mist is generated around the recording head and the cleaning unit is stained by this ink mist.
Thus, conventionally, the cleaning unit is cleaned periodically.
However, conventionally, since the cleaning unit is arranged near the standby position where the recording head is on standby, there is a problem in that it is difficult to perform cleaning work for the cleaning unit because the recording head interferes with the work.